Discussions By Condition: Injury

Broken Jaw and Problem Plates

Hi everyone, my name is Jim and I'm looking for some advice from anyone who has had a similar problem.I had my jaw fractured in 3 places last summer (23/07/08) by some idiots who seemingly took a disliking to me and attacked me in numbers, unprovoked in the early hours.I was in hospital for 5 days and had 6 hours surgery to reposition my jaw and insert 3 plates. Two plates across my lower right/chin area where there was a pretty massive double fracture where the punch/kick (the police/doctors agreed it was possibly knuckle dusters looking at the damage) landed and one plate on the left side near the joint where the force had had snapped along the weaker part of the jaw.I actually had a reasonable recovery, i was back to work with 4 weeks and eating soft foods. But then the plates started to hurt. Xrays were taken to confirm the fractures had pretty much healed and at xmas (23/12/08) i had another surgery to remove the two lower plates as the larger of the two was causing a lot of trouble and since the second plate was right above it the surgeon decided they may aswell take it out at the same time to prevent the need for a second surgery should that plate beging to cause trouble.Unfortunately it was unsuccessful as they had had new 'Universal plate kits'. The smaller plate was removed without a problem but the larger problem causing plate had a different form of screw head and the surgeon told me afterwards that the 'Universal Kit' did not have "The correct screwdriver" to remove it and the old kits had been sold on or disposed of. The surgeon did actually file an incident report and explained the only other way to remove it was to chisel it out which wouldn't have been healthy.So now i wait until 24th April 2009 for another appointment to more than likely be put on another waiting list for another operation and hope that in the last 3 months they have found or obtained the right screwdriver.But, the point for my post is that i found this website after another night of no sleep because of pain from this silly metal plate in my mouth and searching for information on the problem. Is this normal for the plate to be causing this much pain? Is there anything the hospital could actually be keeping from me or possibly worse a problem they are not considering? The thing I worry for most is if i do have another surgery but it turns out not to be the plate at all but something else. Although people do know their own bodys surpisingly well and i would bet a lot of my savings that this alien chunk of metal is the problem.Sorry if this post blabber's a bit but i am not too good at structuring a post to make perfect sense :D

6 Replies:

I broke my jaw 2 weeks ago and the first hospital that I went to, I was seen by a plastic surgeon and he recommended surgery with plates.. Then I went to a different hospital and I was seen by a oral/ maxofaciall or whatever surgeon and he told me surgery wasnt possible so I had to be wired up. Which did you go to?

I was taken to Accident and Emergency and kept in hospital until after the Operation because the pain was excessive and I couldn't eat or move my mouth. It was a maxillofacial surgeon that saw me and they went straight for plates as it was the only way to get it back together.

HI JimI broke my jaw 7 months ago now and am still having problems. It got really badly infected so I was in hospital for a week on i.v. I had an op and they put a metal plate in. It got infected again though 2 months after and they had to do another op. The metal plate is causing me a lot of pain and I am booked in for another op to remove it. I also get really bad headaches and my jaw clicks on both sides when I eat. It has ruined my life pretty much but hopefully it will heal eventually!! Do you get similar problems?

HI JimI broke my jaw 7 months ago now and am still having problems. It got really badly infected so I was in hospital for a week on i.v. I had an op and they put a metal plate in. It got infected again though 2 months after and they had to do another op. The metal plate is causing me a lot of pain and I am booked in for another op to remove it. I also get really bad headaches and my jaw clicks on both sides when I eat. It has ruined my life pretty much but hopefully it will heal eventually!! Do you get similar problems?Bob-o You'll be back on top in no time. God works in mysterious ways. I know you'll heal up soon enough, Sorry to hear about the complications though. You eating alright?

i got my jaw snapped in may 2013 and have problems with it ever since....i had 3 paltes fitted and now there giving me grief ive been to the docs and got some strong painkillers...just wondering if anybody has info on infections so so

I got my jaw fractured in 2011! Ever since i have had problems getting infections in my gums where i had to operation. Previous times ive been to the dentist and they have give me penecilan to take swelling down and then just told to take paracetomols. This time the pain is 100x worse so ive rang the doctors up! I have to ring for an emergency appointment where they will refer me back to the hospital to hopefully get operation to grt these plates out! (Lower ones keep causing me the problems)